


cold is the night

by spiralpegasus



Series: Sylvix Week 2019 [1]
Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon-Typical Violence, Fire Emblem: Three Houses Blue Lions Route Spoilers, M/M, Mentioned Blue Lions Students (Fire Emblem), dimitri isn't physically here but his presence is enough to tag him
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-13
Updated: 2019-10-13
Packaged: 2020-12-14 10:36:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,954
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21014378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spiralpegasus/pseuds/spiralpegasus
Summary: Five years is a long time to be apart.Or, Felix vanishes after the fall of Garreg Mach to search for Dimitri. Sylvain's face haunts him in the years that follow.Sylvix Week 2019 Day One: Reunion





	cold is the night

**Author's Note:**

> title is from cold is the night by the oh hellos, which i listened to nonstop while writing this
> 
> the archive warning is for one brief section that has a pretty graphic description of corpses;; if you'd like to skip it, stop at "months pass by in a feverish haze" and start again at "the passage of time..."
> 
> there's also some very mild suicidal ideation

Dimitri is dead.

Felix’s father left just days ago, riding to the capital to demand to see the prince’s corpse. It’s foolish. Of course the first thing the Empire would do is kill the crown prince of the nation they’re subjugating, and there’s no sense in claiming to have killed a man who’s still alive and capable of refuting the notion. Dimitri is dead, and there’s no sense dwelling or denying. Dimitri is dead.

So why is Felix saddling up his horse? Dimitri is dead, and there’s no sense looking for him. Why is Felix strapping his bedroll to the saddle? Why is he packing rations – why is he bringing the knife he uses to clean his kills when he hunts? He’s not going to spend even a day looking for a dead prince, let alone however long this bag will last him. Dimitri is dead.

The Fraldarius lands are lit in the pale gray glow of early dawn when Felix mounts his horse. He doesn’t leave a message with a servant, doesn’t wait for his father to return. He urges his horse forward into the light dusting of snow.

A boar will run along the spear that gored it to kill the person at the other end. There’s no way Dimitri would die so quietly.

Maybe Felix will follow a trail of corpses to find Dimitri’s at its end. Maybe he’ll find Dimitri strung up on an Imperial pike. Maybe Dimitri really is still alive, lurking in a den somewhere like the animal he is. Faerghus is a large place, and Felix will comb every inch of it, no matter how long it takes. If Faerghus is empty, he will go to the Alliance, and then to the Empire.

Dimitri never learned to let his ghosts rest, and if Felix were the one whose death was uncertain, Dimitri would hunt down his whereabouts like a dog – to save him, to avenge him. The boar may be a beast wearing a human face, but even beasts know loyalty.

“Damn you,” Felix mutters into the frigid morning air.

Will Sylvain and Ingrid look for Dimtiri, too? No—even if they believe Dimitri is still alive, they cling to their duties with white-knuckled fingers, and news of the Prince’s death will shake the rest of loyal Faerghus to its core. Gautier and Galatea will need their heirs to keep any semblance of order. Fraldarius expects little of Felix. Glenn was their golden heir, and Felix is nothing but a poor replacement, a shadow of what his father is and what Glenn could have been.

He can’t tell them where he’s going. They’ll try to stop him, or worse, they’ll follow. Sylvain, especially—

_—we’ll stay together until we die together, I promise—_

—he can’t let Sylvain follow him where he’s going. Not when Sylvain would die to protect him, and Felix barely feels anything for his own life anymore. Without a corpse, Sylvain will cling to the hope that Felix survived, and he’ll keep living. Maybe Felix will return to him, and maybe he won’t, but Sylvain will keep living. Keep hoping.

Beneath him, Solveiga huffs, her breath puffing into a cloud in front of her face. Sylvain gave her the name when Felix couldn’t think of one – _a beautiful lady deserves a beautiful name,_ Sylvain had cooed as he brushed a hand down Solveiga’s pitch-black flank.

She’s always liked Sylvain. She doesn’t like many people, but Sylvain has a way with animals, especially the prickly ones. Maybe it’s why Felix likes him, too. Maybe even loves—

He pulls up his hood and urges Solveiga into a trot. There are only two things that await Felix now: Dimitri, or death. He can’t indulge fantasies of Sylvain’s warm hands, or the smile he reserves only for the people he’s close to. (It’s more crooked than his fake one. His laugh, too—sometimes he snorts when he really gets going. Sylvain thinks those things are ugly, and so he hides them when he puts on his masks, but to Felix, there’s nothing more precious in the world.)

(He tucks these thoughts into the back of his mind, where they might keep him warm as he ventures into the Faerghus cold to search for a corpse.)

A year passes like this: he and Solveiga scour what’s left of loyal Faerghus, starting with Fraldarius and branching out into Gautier, Galatea, and Charon. He hears nothing of the Prince’s triumphant return, or of the Shield of Faerghus retrieving the Prince’s corpse from the Empire, and so he keeps searching. 

Countless towns are plagued by bandits as the Empire chokes the flow of resources to less fortunate territories. He catches sight of Ingrid in a village in Galatea, her pegasus splattered with blood as she runs bandits through with her lance; he stays to finish the battle, but does not let her see his face. Thoughts of his friends – of Sylvain – come and go, and he refuses to let himself dwell on them. He has a mission, and thinking of Annette and Ashe’s sweet smiles, of Mercedes’s warm touch on his arm, of Ingrid, of Sylvain—he cannot afford distractions. Cannot be tempted to return, when he still has no idea what’s become of the boar.

A year becomes two, and Felix is still alone, Solveiga his only company.

He’s weakened as the months drag by with no sign of the boar, and he daydreams often of Sylvain’s body against his. He clutches his memories of Sylvain’s smile to his chest as he tries to sleep at night. His dreams are dark and restless. Dimitri’s head rolling on the streets of Fhirdiad, Dimitri’s body hung on the gates of Enbarr. Dedue rotting in a shallow, unmarked grave, because the fact that he died protecting Dimitri is as undeniable as the fact that no one left in Fhirdiad would mourn him. Ingrid, Mercedes, Annette, Ashe, all struggling beneath the growing weight of the Imperial presence. Sylvain, begging Felix to come back, begging to know why he left at all.

He allows himself these weaknesses. He even allows himself tears, if the night is long enough and his dreams bloody enough. But he cannot allow himself to return to the people whose faces he can’t stop dreaming about. Not until he’s found the boar, or he joins the boar in death.

Does he trouble their minds, he wonders, or is he just another casualty in a war that only gets bloodier with every passing day? Does he trouble Sylvain’s mind?

“Stupid,” he whispers, voice hoarse with disuse. “You’re being so fucking stupid.”

Solveiga eyes him. She’s gotten skinnier, though Felix spends what little coin he earns trying to keep her fed. The Empire has control over many of Faerghus’s fertile lands, so even the harvest season is a hungry one; most of what Faerghus eats is imported from the Alliance, who raise their prices mercilessly high as they cling to a veneer of neutrality. 

Felix himself is nothing but whipcord muscle and jutting bones. He feels the lack of fat keenly on cold nights as he shivers into his furs, face wrapped in fabric to keep his nose from getting frostbitten as he sleeps. He follows stories of dead Imperial patrols, hoping beyond hope to hear stories of a wild beast, a vengeful specter—but all he finds are Kingdom troops taking their victories where they can.

He always made fun of Sylvain for talking to his horse. “He doesn’t understand you,” Felix would scoff as Sylvain made kissy noises at Endymion. But he finds himself speaking with Solveiga more and more often now, if only to fill the silence.

“I miss them,” he rasps as he walks alongside Solveiga to give her a break from his weight. They’re almost to a town, where he can feed and water her and maybe buy her a night in a stable. He doesn’t like to waste money on a room for himself, but she deserves a bit of respite now and again if he expects her to keep carrying him like this. “All of them, I—I didn’t expect to miss them this much.”

She snorts. Felix sighs, not sure why he expected her to—what, nudge him comfortingly with her nose? She doesn’t understand what he’s saying. Still, he continues.

“I miss Sylvain. I…” _Some days, all I can think about is lying down and giving up. Some days, all that keeps me from falling on my own sword is the thought of leaving him behind._ But some thoughts he cannot give voice to, even to a creature that won’t understand them. “I hope I can see him again one day,” is what he says instead.

They’re at the trough now, and Solveiga lowers her head to drink. She doesn’t acknowledge his words, and he’s not sure why he expected her to. He’s overcome with a senseless feeling of shame as she blinks placidly.

“If you tell anyone about this,” he hisses as she drinks from the trough, “I will kill you.”

A woman in peasant’s clothes leading a donkey to the trough blinks at him. He bares his teeth at her.

Two years slides into three. Felix barely thinks himself human anymore. He glanced at his reflection in a lake as he stopped to let Solveiga drink and saw the boar’s wild eyes staring back at him, and he’s since refused to look at himself at all. 

This is when he finds his first shreds of hope.

_A monster,_ the people in the villages he passes through whisper. _A demon. Whatever killed those soldiers, it can’t be human._ It’s only Imperial patrols this creature targets, it seems. Felix is far enough behind its trail that he’s sure some of the rumors are exaggerated – he doubts the boar would resort to tearing chunks out of people with his teeth, but what does he know – but to his aching, grief-addled heart, there is only one answer.

Dimitri is alive.

Or, what’s left of Dimitri, anyway. The beast wearing Dimitri’s skin still walks Fódlan, and Felix is going to find it.

He throws himself back into his mission with frenetic, sleepless energy. Sylvain haunts the edges of his thoughts as he pushes himself to the point of breaking; he only stops to rest because Solveiga collapsing would slow him down even more. He must look as feral as the boar did, all those years ago during the western rebellion. The bandits that meet their deaths on the edge of his blade certainly look terrified enough for it.

Months blur together in a feverish haze. He follows the beast’s trail from town to town, field to field, battlefield to bloody battlefield. The closer he gets, the more violent the stories get – it seems the rumors he’d chased originally were tame compared to the reality of what Dimitri has become. He even stumbles across what he thinks was a group of the boar’s victims.

The bodies are torn asunder. Barely recognizable as human. One hangs from a tree branch, viscera dangling, crawling with flies. Bones and guts and flesh, all scattered with no regard for the people they once belonged to. A chill slides down his spine as he realizes there actually are bloody tooth marks on some of the more intact pieces of corpse.

The faces of the victims are torn apart beyond recognition. The only thing left to identify them by are the Imperial insignias on their uniforms, untouched by the violence that surrounds them. It’s something so intelligent, so bone-chillingly human, that Felix’s doubts vanish entirely.

The passage of time only regains its significance when Felix is in a decently-sized town to listen for rumors. Someone mentions the Millennium Festival in passing – _that’s in a few months, huh? Not a lot left to celebrate_ – and he physically jolts at the memory of a promise.

_Five years from now, we’ll all meet back at the monastery._

If there’s any part of Dimitri that’s survived these four years, then that’s where he’ll go. And so that’s where Felix will go, too.

Does Sylvain remember, too? Will Sylvain be there, too? It’s been so long since Felix has seen or touched anyone he cares about. He thinks he understands better now the ghosts that haunt Dimitri’s every step.

When the day of the millennium festival arrives, the monastery is silent. Dark. Moonlight catches on the white glint of bones from the fall five years ago. Felix doesn’t believe in ghosts, but the weight of the death this place has seen presses heavy on his shoulders as he ventures into its guts.

The corpses get fresher the farther he walks. The Adrestian eagle is on the breastplate of all the dead. Felix’s heart jumps and stutters—five years of searching, hoping, cursing, losing his mind to the silence, and now it might be over.

Battle cries and the painfully familiar sound of steel clashing against steel hurry his footsteps. The courtyard is full of movement, weapons flashing bright in the moonlight, voices crying out—familiar voices—a familiar voice—

“Sylvain,” he whispers hoarsely.

He’s filled out some, Felix thinks, but it’s hard to tell from this distance. He wields the Lance of Ruin with deadly purpose from atop his horse (Endymion, his damn Endymion is still alive too), and beside him, a large, winged shape swoops into view. Ingrid, on her pegasus. Ingrid’s here too.

Felix unsheathes his sword and sprints into the fray. His thoughts of Sylvain and Ingrid slide to the wayside as he falls back into the familiar rhythm of killing. The closer they draw to the center of the courtyard, the more familiar faces he sees – Ashe, atop his dappled mare; Mercedes and Annette slinging spells; Gilbert in his bulky armor.

Dimitri, and beside him, a flash of pale green hair.

It can’t be. Dimitri he knew would never die like that, but the Professor had fallen to their death. Everyone had searched for their body, even Felix. Nothing remained of them but a bloody splatter on a riverbank that dragged itself down into the water. But the face is the same. The hair is the same. The way they cover Dimitri’s reckless back – it’s all the same.

“Some fucking reunion,” Felix mutters. The only one missing is Dedue, and Felix tries to ignore the sting in his heart at the thought of his death.

Their group – Dimitri, mostly – makes short work of the bandits, and Felix is swaying where he stands, sword held in a loose grip, when a shape darts in front of him and sweeps him up off his feet. His sword clatters to the ground, and he gasps as he’s clutched tight to a familiar chest.

“Felix,” Sylvain says, his voice a tiny, trembling thing. “Felix. You’re here. You came. You’re here.”

“Of course I came, you dumbass,” Felix mutters. He loops his arms around Sylvain’s neck and squeezes back, as tightly as his exhausted arms can manage.

“I thought—” Sylvain chokes. He lowers Felix’s feet back to the ground but doesn’t let go, hunching over him like he can envelop Felix with his body. “I thought you were—”

“You really thought I’d die that easily?” But Felix hears the weakness in his words as he speaks them. The memory of the nights he spent thinking his end was inevitable – that either his body would give out, or his mind would – makes his voice waver. His fingers scrabble against Sylvain’s armor as if to search for purchase.

“I—I wasn’t gonna wait anymore.” One of Sylvain’s hands slides up Felix’s back and buries itself in his hair. He tucks Felix’s face against his neck, and Felix lets him, resting his cheek against the cool plate of Sylvain’s pauldron. “I figured—you’d be here, or you’d be dead.”

“I’m here,” Felix says. He shifts his face so his lips are pressed to the sliver of exposed skin above Sylvain’s collar. Sylvain is trembling around him. There’s nothing he can say to ease the ache of his absence for the past five years, and he swallows around a suddenly dry throat. “I’m here,” he repeats lamely.

“You’re here,” Sylvain says, his voice cracking. His cheek presses against Felix’s hair, and Felix can feel the moment Sylvain starts crying. “Goddess, Felix, I—I can’t lose you too. Do you understand? I can’t.” Sylvain’s fingers dig into his scalp in a desperate grip. “I _can’t.”_

The reality of what Felix has done to Sylvain crashes into him in an icy wave. The Professor, Dimitri, Dedue—five years gone with no bodies to bury, no corpses to mourn. And Felix vanished just the same.

“I’m sorry,” he forces out. His eyes and nose sting. He thought his tears dried up years ago, but here Sylvain is, making him cry again. Making him feel again.

“If you hadn’t come,” Sylvain whispers, “I don’t think I could have—”

He stops, but the blow of the words he didn’t speak aloud is enough to break Felix’s heart in half.

“Don’t follow me,” he begs Sylvain in a pathetically small voice. “If I go—”

“I’ll follow,” Sylvain interrupts him. He rocks Felix from side to side, very gently. Their tears are silent things, shared only in the small places between their bodies.

“Don’t follow me,” Felix repeats. He’s not leaving again. He can’t. Sylvain’s arms are around him, warm, alive, filling the crevices of his heart long left empty by solitude. He can’t leave again. He swallows, pulls back. Meets Sylvain’s tear-filled eyes, flickers his gaze down to his lips. “Walk beside me instead.”

Sylvain lets out a sound that’s half sob and half laugh as he leans down to kiss him.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading! i wish i could have written more actual physical sylvix but this thing was already way too long


End file.
